Spunky Southern heroine's coming-of-age

Susan Gregg Gilmore hit the Southern fiction scene with a bang with her delicious debut, Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen. Her second novel, The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove, is a coming-of-age story set in Gilmore's own hometown of Nashville during the 1950s and 1960s. As the title indicates, Bezellia is not the prim...

Exploring the sacred relics of the mind

Paul Auster, with his characteristically masterful postmodern experimentation, once again proves himself equally adept at character development and emotional depth. His 16th novel, which follows a group of young squatters seeking refuge from the harsh demands on their generation, is both touching and timely—and showcases the unlikely adaptability of a much-pigeonholed writer.While...

Love in all its many disguises

John Casey’s 1989 National Book Award winner, Spartina, depicted a tightly knit Rhode Island community steeped in the sea—its financial and emotional support system. Compass Rose, his highly anticipated follow-up novel, revisits that insular community, picking up just where Spartina left off.Elsie Buttrick, who was engaged in a passionate affair with Dick Pierce, the quiet, stoic...

Home, not-so-sweet, home

There is one thing you can be sure of in Nicolle Wallace’s debut novel: Every background detail and procedural item is accurate to the very last degree. Wallace didn’t have to interview anyone but herself about internal operations within the 18 acres of the title—that is, the White House. As a former White House Communications Director (under George W. Bush), as well as a...

An unusual woman for her time

In 1692, after the overthrow of James VII of Scotland and the installation of William and Mary on his throne, a child-sized woman, abused, malnourished and probably half-crazy, tells her story to a priest sent to convert the “barbarians” of the Scottish Highlands. The woman, Corrag, has fled England to escape the fate of her mother, Cora; like so many wild, strange women versed in...

Delving into the dark secrets of the past

The Distant Hours is a multigenerational puzzle complete with a decaying castle, hidden manuscripts and not one but two families with secrets. Readers familiar with the novels of Kate Morton will recognize her distinctive way of weaving disparate elements together to create an intriguing tale, as well as the delicious way she tips her hat to previous novels that feature great English houses...

Variations on the haunting theme of love gone wrong

In her latest novel, Cynthia Ozick confirms her position as our sorceress of disenchantment, our wizard of lost illusions, the closest we will ever come to the irretrievable magic of broken spells woven by her idol Henry James. Both Foreign Bodies and her recent novella “Dictation” show Ozick to be smitten by James to the last degree. Now she has thrown off all restraint in her...

People who live in glass houses

In The Neighbors Are Watching, Debra Ginsberg explores the delicate equilibriums of her characters’ lives behind the closed doors of their southern California neighborhood. The arrival of Diana, a pregnant teenager—and her subsequent disappearance—causes a frisson of energy to surge around the cul-de-sac. Interpersonal drama plays out against the backdrop of the California...

The power and magic of memory

By probing the mind and heart of a man in extreme old age, Walter Mosley has produced what might be his most daring novel yet. Consider this: How many novels have you read lately that are about a very old person whose mind is fading and failing? Even if a few titles come to mind, you probably can’t think of one that is also a passionate and unorthodox love story—and that love story...

Mysterious deaths lead an artist on a soul-searching journey

An art critic, Daniel Lichtmann, wants to solve a mystery. Recently, his wife fell to her death from a building in New York. Within seconds, a famous artist also fell from the same building and died, inches away from her. The artist happens to be Benjamin Wind, a Native American sculptor whose works have inspired some of Licht-mann’s most renowned essays. Why was Wind with...